Fresh strawberries mean more than shortcake

Featuring strawberries, cookie dough and Nutella, this is no ordinary pizza. It's for dessert! The recipe is from Market Chronicles, Stories and Recipes from Montreal's Marché Jean Talon by Susan Semenak.Albert Elbilia
/ Les Éditions Cardinal

Ricardo Larrivée included this colourful Crab and Strawberry Salad with Lime in his cookbook Meals for Every Occasion (Les Éditions La Presse). All you do is toss the ingredients together in a bowl.Les Éditions La Presse

Sliced fresh strawberries are mixed with creamy ricotta and cottage cheeses for this simple and nutritious breakfast quesadilla from How To Feed a Family by Laura Keogh and Ceri Marsh.Maya Visnyei
/ Random House

Strawberry granita: For an after-dinner dessert cocktail, splash in a little Fragoli.Ryland, Peters and Small
/ .

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MONTREAL -- Do you eat them straight out of the basket? Dipped in chocolate or cooked into jam? Sliced onto shortcake?

This is strawberry’s season. What used to be a short but intense harvest that rarely lasted past early July is now a summer-long berryfest as strawberry growers cultivate new varieties for harvest right up until October.

Of course, the best way to fete our favourite local fruit is to eat it right there in the strawberry patch. Shortcake comes second.

But there are other delicious and unexpected ways to get the most out of juicy local strawberries, some of them involving elements other than cake.

Here are a few:

Strawberry Granita

Serves 4

You don’t need an ice-cream maker for Italian ice. This recipe, adapted from the cookbook Recipes From an Italian Summer (Phaidon), makes intensely flavoured granita that is stirred and scraped periodically while freezing. Serve it in tall, narrow glasses as Italians do, or in wine glasses or clear dessert bowls. For an after-dinner dessert cocktail, splash in a little Fragoli, the wild strawberry liqueur.

¾ cup sugar

2 1/4 cups very ripe strawberries, hulled

Juice of one orange, strained

Juice of one lemon, strained

Put the sugar in a medium saucepan, pour in 1 cup of water and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Reduce heat to low and simmer, without stirring, for 5 to 10 minutes, until syrupy.

Remove from heat and let cool. Set aside four strawberries for decoration. Purée the rest in a food processor, then strain through a sieve to remove seeds. Stir in the orange and lemon juices, then add the sugar syrup. Pour the mixture into a shallow freezer-proof container or non-stick metal baking pan and freeze, stirring and scraping the icy edges into the middle with a fork every 30 minutes, for 3 hours.

To serve, remove the granita from the freezer and scrape with a fork into four glasses or bowls. If the granita is frozen too solid, transfer it to the fridge for 15 minutes or so until it is soft enough to break up with a fork.

Garnish with reserved strawberries.

Strawberry Vinegar

Makes about 2 cups

Make your own fruit vinegar to capture strawberries’ fruity, aromatic essence. Refrigerated, this ruby-coloured vinegar lasts for up to a month. Its sweet-tart flavour makes it a natural in salads, to deglaze sauces, or to splash into soda water for a thirst-quenching summer drink.

In keeping with the strawberry theme, make a spinach salad with strawberry vinaigrette. Whisk equal parts strawberry vinegar and extra virgin olive oil with salt and freshly ground pepper, then toss with baby spinach leaves and sliced strawberries.

1 pound strawberries, hulled and coarsely chopped

¼ cup sugar

3 cups rice wine vinegar or white balsamic vinegar

Mix chopped strawberries with sugar in a bowl, tossing until sugar dissolves. Transfer strawberries and their juices to a wide-mouth jar and add vinegar. Stir and let steep in the fridge overnight.

Strain vinegar through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean jar or bottle with a tight-fitting seal. Discard solids. Store vinegar in the fridge for up to a month.

Strawberry Nutella Pizza

Serves 8

This is an easy dessert pizza I invented. Its no-fail cookie-dough crust is topped with sweetened mascarpone cream and sliced strawberries and drizzled with Nutella. The recipe makes enough for two crusts, so wrap one of the dough balls in plastic wrap for later use.

For cookie crust:

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoon baking powder

2 3/4 cups flour

For mascarpone cream:

2 cups mascarpone cheese

1/3 cup icing sugar

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon Cointreau or other orange-flavoured liqueur

For strawberries:

2 cups sliced strawberries

2 tablespoons sugar

For Nutella cream:

¼ cup Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread

2 tablespoons 35 per cent cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add baking powder and flour, one cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Gather the dough and divide it into two balls. Wrap one in plastic wrap and refrigerate or freeze for later use. On a floured surface, roll the other ball into a 12-inch disc and transfer to an ungreased medium-sized pizza pan, pressing dough to the edges with your fingers. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool on rack. Do not remove from pizza pan.

Whisk together all ingredients for mascarpone cream. Refrigerate. In another bowl, combine strawberries and sugar and let stand 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat Nutella and cream in the top of a double boiler until melted. Stir to combine and let cool slightly.

It might seem like a shame to roast the sweetest, most fragrant strawberries of the season. But the concentrated caramel flavour of roasted strawberries will win you over. These roasted berries from San Francisco food writer and photographer Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day (Ten Speed Press) would be just as happy slathered on cake or toast as drizzled on ice cream or served alongside grilled salmon or chicken. They keep in the fridge for a week or so.

2 cups small to medium strawberries, hulled

4 tablespoons maple syrup

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

2 tablespoons port wine

A few drops good-quality balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F with rack in the middle of the oven.

Use a rimmed baking sheet so that the strawberry juices don’t spill into the oven. Line with parchment paper to prevent sticking.

Cut each strawberry in half into a mixing bowl. (If they are large, cut them into quarters.) In a separate small bowl, whisk together maple syrup, olive oil and salt. Pour this over the strawberries and very gently toss to coat the berries. Arrange the strawberries in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet.

Roast for about 40 minutes, just long enough for the berry juices to thicken, but not long enough for the juices to burn. Watch the edges of the pan in particular. Remove from heat.

While still warm, scrape the berries and the juices from the pan into a small bowl. Stir in the port and balsamic vinegar. Use immediately or let cool and store in the fridge for up to a week.

Strawberries in Spiced Wine

Serves 4

Jean Soulard, the well-known Quebec City chef who ran the kitchens at the Château Frontenac for more than two decades, included this Provençal apéritif in his cookbook Le Grand Soulard de la Cuisine (Les Éditions La Presse.) He recommends Beaujolais or Chinon for the wine. When you are finished drinking, use a small fork to pick out the macerated berries.

2 cups red wine

2/3 cup brown sugar

3 cloves

1 short cinnamon stick

A few peppercorns

Zest of half a lemon

Zest of half an orange

1 lb. firm strawberries

Mint leaves, for garnish

Bring the wine just to a boil along with the sugar, spices and the citrus zests. Reduce heat and let simmer over low heat for five minutes. Let stand to cool. Once cooled, strain though a fine-mesh sieve and refrigerate.

Wash and hull the strawberries and cut them up. Add to the cold spiced wine and let stand for half an hour for the flavours to marry. Serve in wine glasses garnished with mint leaves.

Strawberry, Ricotta and Mint Quesadillas

Serves 4

This breakfast recipe comes from How to Feed a Family (Random House) by Toronto bloggers Laura Keogh and Ceri Marsh, creators of the popular blog Sweet Potato Chronicles. Like a burrito, for breakfast. Assembly, they assure, is fast and easy. You can even mix up the berries and cheese the night before.

1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese

½ cup cottage cheese

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon chopped mint

Zest of one lemon

1 cup sliced strawberries, plus extra for serving

2 teaspoons butter

4 medium whole-grain flour tortillas

Maple syrup for serving

In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta and cottage cheeses with sugar, vanilla, mint and lemon zest. Gently stir in 1 cup strawberries. In a medium frying pan, melt ½ teaspoon butter over medium-low heat. Place a tortilla on the pan and lightly brown on both sides.

Spread ½ cup of the cheese mixture onto the tortilla in the pan. Cook for 1 minute and the fold the tortilla in half. Allow to cook for another 2 minutes. Remove from the pan and repeat with remaining tortillas.

To serve, top with strawberries and mint and drizzle with maple syrup.

Crab and Strawberry Salad with Lime

Serves 4 to 6

I found this colourful salad in Ricardo Larrivée’s cookbook Meals For Every Occasion (Whitecap). It’s great with snow crab from Gaspé when it’s in season or with good-quality canned frozen crabmeat. It makes a lovely lunch or first course for dinner.

2 avocados, peeled, pitted and cut into 1-inch cubes

1 English cucumber, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes

1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, quartered

¾ lb. crabmeat

Juice of 2 limes

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

In a bowl gently toss all the ingredients. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve immediately.

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Fresh strawberries mean more than shortcake

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